thoughts on art and creative living

The image above is a painting created by Jutta Reichardt.  It illustrates the use of an acrylic image transfer, acrylic surface techniques, and stenciled gold leaf that I introduced to my Mixed Media class, taught through Portland Community College last semester. Jutta produced some really amazing work during the class, and I wish my camera didn’t keep running out of batteries every time I wanted to photograph my students works! In this particular piece, Jutta was inspired by learning about a pioneering woman journalist, Nelly Bly, who was famous in her day for traveling around the world in 72 days.  She also revealed the conditions of the working class around the world, and exposed mistreatment of people with mental illness.  It seems to me that having an intense interest in a subject (any subject) can propel the work to its own successful conclusion.

I’m sort of relieved to be on a teaching break til mid January.  It’s good to have some time to get back into my own work more fully, to listen more carefully to what drives me personally… which in the end, I think will make me a better teacher.

I love teaching, as it re-awakens my passion for disseminating information about art.  After all, if making art were just for myself, it would be a pretty selfish thing, wouldn’t it??  The truth of the matter is that the desire to create is both selfish and selfless.  I create because I must, because I am an endlessly frustrated human being if I do not have an outlet for all of the images and thoughts that pour through me.  Whenever I give myself to my creative expression, I return to the most sane aspects of my self.  I become more grounded in my experience of practically everything.  It improves my relationship to myself, to others, and the world around me.  Teaching can also be a very connective experience, and it gives me great pleasure to see anyone grow in their confidence in expressing themselves.

The catch-22 about teaching is that creating art is not merely about having a handle on technique.  Yes, techniques are important.  They are the tools we use to express ourselves visually.  But it’s having a connection to our personal vision that’s most important, and that’s a very difficult thing to teach.  To some extent, we can learn it from example.  I give my students a lot of examples of what other artists are doing, in terms of both subject matter and technique, which I hope might be inspiring to their own works.  This is the reason I’ve posted so many articles on this blog related to various art inspirations (see index for these articles here).

I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of what the class experience is about is providing a space where students are given permission to allow their creative selves to emerge.  I give specific assignments related to using colors, surface techniques, image transfers, etc… but it’s mostly a matter of giving the students a place to create where they feel encouragement, gentle direction, and the immersion of being with others who are also creating, which becomes a large part of the learning experience.  I think that artists need a combination of experiences which include the isolation of working alone, the creative atmosphere of learning from others, as well as a number of other life experiences that provide the ideas that feed their work.

I strongly suggest some form of journaling to record one’s thoughts (both visually and verbally).  Sketching, doodling, or photographing things of interest to you are all helpful in gaining access to your personal sources of inspiration.  Your process of journaling and what to include in it really depends on what ignites your creative furnace.  You might also enjoy gathering things from walks in nature… or gathering ephemera from old magazines, thrift store finds, etc.  If you enjoy textures and patterns, you might collect cloth, lace, or decorative papers that can later be collaged into your works.

I personally enjoy a mixed media approach to creating art, simply because it opens up the range of possibilities.  Practically anything can become fodder for creative exploration.  I enjoy books that provide lots of ideas for how to bring ideas together, giving the reader permission to try anything.

I occasionally check on the blogs of other artists to see what they are creating, and I just found out that an artist I’ve been following has just released a book about exploring collage.  I’ve just checked it out on Amazon, and this looks like a really good one to get my hands on, so I’m spreading the word:

Susan Tuttle‘s new book is called Exhibition 36: Mixed Media Demonstrations (Amazon link)

Susan is offering a free book in her contest for those who mention the book on their blog.  I could really use this book to add to inspiring ideas for my own art as well as teaching, so I’m hoping I have a good chance of winning the book! (see this page of her blog for details on this, if you’d also like a chance at this).  While you’re there, check out some of Susan’s amazing mixed media art.  Here’s an example of one of her assemblages, titled, “I Went to the Woods”:

(Update: I didn’t win the book, but trying for it gave me the idea of occasionally reviewing art books that I think are particularly inspiring.  Look forward to seeing some art book reviews in the future).

I’ve been craving a bit of solitude lately.  Speaking of this need to a friend, she offered me her place for the weekend, while she was out of town.  After sharing houses for years, this small break was like heaven for me.  I decided to make it into my own little creative/spiritual retreat.  The focus was to read, write, walk, paint and meditate… and nothing else.   I highly recommend this to anyone who feels overwhelmed by the pressures of the everyday.  Whatever it is that engages you with your higher self, focus on nothing but this for a day, a weekend, a week… whatever you can afford to give yourself.

At the outset, I decided not to judge whatever I produced.  This is time for me, not for pumping out salable artwork.  Sometimes the pressure of that is itself debilitating.  I wanted to flow with whatever came up for me.

I started the painting above a little before the retreat, but brought it along to have at least one thing that already had a beginning.  It was the freshest thing in my studio.  It began with star-shaped flowers…. then the swirling sky.  I started to see a bird in the sky, so I painted that.  Then I saw the woman.  It’s not finished, but I sort of like it this way right now.  When I come to a place where I don’t know what to do next, I stop.  I feed my senses with something else until the next step announces itself.  I read, walk or I paint something else.

I was at a loss about what to paint next.  Mostly, I give myself too many choices, so my biggest dilemma is making a decision.  I got up to make some tea and looked at Joy’s walls for a little while.  I found myself staring at a madonna image.  Mind you, I’m not a religious person (in the traditional way, at least), but when a little voice in my head told me to “paint myself as the goddess”, I decided to do it.  The result is less goddess than peasant, but there’s something I like about it.   One problem I had was that the only mirror I had with me was a two inch magnifying mirror, so I can’t see my whole face in it.  I can see one eye, a nose, my lips in isolation… but could not see the whole at once.  So I decided that was my challenge, to figure out how to make them work together. I struggled with the proportions.  I’ve finally come to a place with it that I recognize myself, though there is some odd distortions.  It still needs some work, but I don’t want to overwork it. I want to leave it partly unfinished.

(When Joy came back, she was surprised, and told me that she put that madonna image up for me, and wondered if I would see myself in it).

I started a couple other little paintings which are still in their beginning stages.  In both, I started with a textured background by pressing plastic wrap into wet paint.  It was easy to see trees, branches and leaves in this, so I took out my oil pastels and started to define these shapes.  Not too surprisingly, a river formed in both of these paintings as well.  The image of water and trees is something that bubbles up in meditation frequently these days.   I visualize this body of water (a stream or river more than an ocean).  At first, I am only aware of the reflections on the water.  The water reflects the sky and shadows of trees above.  I feel gently pulled into it.  It’s like I am on an invisible boat.  I don’t have a body, but I sense myself being pulled along the river.  I am lost in the motion of ripples, the reflection, the shadows.  This is the archetypal landscape of my soul: water, trees, sky…

I realize that I want to paint from the source more frequently.  To go outside and paint what I see in the reflections of the water.  But it was a rainy weekend, so I decided “the source” was whatever I could pull out of what I saw in the paint.  These are timid beginnings so far, but I see the potential already.  Again, I like looking at the work before it’s been fully realized.

Another thing I thought about painting (but didn’t) was a pomegranate, based on images that have come up in both meditations and dreams.  But when I opened the fruit, I was confounded by the complexity of hundreds of seeds.  I decided to do a photographic study instead, to help me decide how I wanted to approach the subject before I try to paint it.  The night before I went out to purchase the pomegranate, I burned a candle that overflowed.  I picked up the wax and realized that it also resembled the pomegranate, so I posed it with the fruit, which seemed to emphasize the sense of oozing.  I ran the image through some Photoshop filters to see how different colors affected the image.

In my dream during this retreat, I was eating the pomegranite seeds (sharing it with Joy, who was sharing her home with me).  I looked down on my plate and was surprised to see that the seeds were glowing like little light-bulbs.  I knew it was about embracing the feminine archetype… to learn about and hold this power… and to realize that my connection to this world is through the senses, to embrace that also.